The schedule feature on WordPress means you can get your blog posts out there for the future.
While you are busy with something special at work, or – dare I say it – on holiday you will have posts being published according to your time scale.
Your time can be freed up to either respond on social media in real time, or to actually have some nourishing and important time off. (Don’t leave this out of your life as it is probably when you will get your best ideas as well.)
The other benefit is that if you write in a big chunk of time you can get the posts out and scheduled. For some people once you start writing that is when the ideas come. It may be a mistake to think you can pick it up again next week, next month or in a few days time.
Did you realise you can also use the Schedule button to publish a post in the past?
Why would you want to schedule in the past?
If you are extremely busy.
If you are at an event, or conference you may not have time to write a thoughtful post about your reflections. But you also don’t want the post to be too far away from the date of the event. You can publish it retrospectively so it all looks more of a piece.
If you write a roundup newsletter each month you would want the post to refer to the month in which it happened rather than the date of the newsletter which might be in the following month.
If you have a big gap in your publishing schedule you can fill it. Life happens. We all fall off the wagon, or get disheartened at times. If you want to make your publishing output look more consistent you can fill in the past.
Either with a very old post you have re-written and updated, or a new post that you decide to publish during a certain timeframe.
Of course you can link to other related posts with plug ins or apps such as YetAnotherRelatedPost or LinkWithin but you might want your list of recent posts to appear on your blog in a specific order. If you have a Recent Posts widget on your blog it can look rather strange if there are large gaps.
Your promotion of your post will not be affected, but your professional reputation might benefit.
How do you post date your post using the schedule feature?
.
Look at the top right box in WordPress. If you already have published the blog post go to the right and click the edit link. You can then choose the date you want the post to be published again.
If this is a brand new post do the same thing; edit the date you want it published.
Postdating a post with the schedule function will save the day!